I have an Avalon Rainier wood stove which I love. It came with my house and I've never owned a wood burning stove before. The first time I used it, I was just flinging open the door when putting in more wood and pretty soon my house smelled like a campfire. I felt pretty ill the next day and got smart enough to look up the owners manual. Everybody kept telling me that I need to open the flue but there isn't one. I've read through the manual and to minimize the smoke that enters the room, it says to open the door about 1/4" for a bit to regulate the flow of smoke. I had a fire last night and no matter what I did, a significant amount of smoke would escape. It was to the point that I had to turn on the ceiling fans and open the door and window to let it out of the house. You could actually see it escaping outside. Is this just a bad side effect of the stove or am I missing something? I love my stove and will continue to use it. I'd just like to avoid the smoke in the house if possible. Thanks for your help
Smoke escape when reloading
- Thread starter Malland
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well I moved in June 2006 and it was cleaned by the previous owner just before I moved. I've used it maybe 50 times since then. I'll try cleaning it this weekend. Another question, if you open the door and look inside and up, there are these brick like things, about 6 of them, that I"m assuming are used to stop the ash from flying up. I only know this because one of them must have gotten bumped and was lying against the back wall. To clean the chimney, I remove the top and stick the chimney brush down there and do a motion almost like churning butter. Do I need to remove those bricks? Otherwise won't all the gunk just sit on top of them? I hope this makes sense and if not, I can take a picture of what I'm talking about and post it when I get home
Welcome to the forums Malland... You have a good question and discussion, but it belongs in the Hearth Room, which is for stoves, not the Boiler / Central heater area... (so I'm moving it)
As a practical matter it sounds like you really need to have your chimney and stove cleaned and INSPECTED by a professional, along with some training on how best to operate the stove...
You shouldn't have smoke escaping into the house to any significant degree - since smoke can contain carbon monoxide, it is a potentially DEADLY problem... (Feeling ill or "flu-like" symptoms is a sign of CO poisoning BTW, so you have a REAL problem...) Do you have CO detectors? Are they working? If not, you should NOT burn the stove until you have some!
It sounds like you have either something you are doing wrong with your technique, something wrong with the stove, or a dirty chimney (which incidentally should be cleaned ANUALLY if you are using the stove at all...), any of which could be causing a draft problem. There might also be a problem with the installation.
Go ahead and post your pictures, hopefully someone more familiar with your model stove than I am can help figure out what they are, and advice you on the best cleaing process.
Gooserider
As a practical matter it sounds like you really need to have your chimney and stove cleaned and INSPECTED by a professional, along with some training on how best to operate the stove...
You shouldn't have smoke escaping into the house to any significant degree - since smoke can contain carbon monoxide, it is a potentially DEADLY problem... (Feeling ill or "flu-like" symptoms is a sign of CO poisoning BTW, so you have a REAL problem...) Do you have CO detectors? Are they working? If not, you should NOT burn the stove until you have some!
It sounds like you have either something you are doing wrong with your technique, something wrong with the stove, or a dirty chimney (which incidentally should be cleaned ANUALLY if you are using the stove at all...), any of which could be causing a draft problem. There might also be a problem with the installation.
Go ahead and post your pictures, hopefully someone more familiar with your model stove than I am can help figure out what they are, and advice you on the best cleaing process.
Gooserider
IF you have a newer or air tight house you have a negative pressure in the house, so when you open the door the vacuum of the house sucks the smoke in. Try cracking a window near the fire for a min before you open the door and see if that solves the issue, then go from there. The "bricks on the ceiling" is the upper baffle for the secondary burn system thats in the stove. They keep the heat in the firebox, and promote the secondary burn. You should remove them when you clean the chimney so you dont crack them, and it will let the creosote fall into the firebox to be disposed of.
Could that displaced brick, wich by the way really should not be that easy to occur, be blocking draft? just a thought.
Long time ago I mirrored a friends chimney that was only burning for 7-10 days or so with the same symptoms as Malland.
I spied what looked like like a brick collapse but when he said it was tiled lined it dawned on me that I was looking at huge chunks creosote...and that's what it was. When we went upstairs to the flue pipe off the stove was almost totally plugged up with creosote ...incredible this could happen in 10 days or less but it did.
He was burning green wood that kind of burned barely OK but tried to stretch it out with long burns and that did it. He thought a sweep I recommended might have damaged his chimney that why I got involved. Well we used a balled up chain on the chimney and once again I explained about burning hotter. He got by OK by mixing up some pallets from work and also by bringing the stove up to critical mass twice a day to burn out the creosote. Yeah I know that's frowned on now but back in the day that's what many of us did to keep the flue cleaned out...Oh I almost forgot this happened during shoulder season too so that compounded the situation.
I spied what looked like like a brick collapse but when he said it was tiled lined it dawned on me that I was looking at huge chunks creosote...and that's what it was. When we went upstairs to the flue pipe off the stove was almost totally plugged up with creosote ...incredible this could happen in 10 days or less but it did.
He was burning green wood that kind of burned barely OK but tried to stretch it out with long burns and that did it. He thought a sweep I recommended might have damaged his chimney that why I got involved. Well we used a balled up chain on the chimney and once again I explained about burning hotter. He got by OK by mixing up some pallets from work and also by bringing the stove up to critical mass twice a day to burn out the creosote. Yeah I know that's frowned on now but back in the day that's what many of us did to keep the flue cleaned out...Oh I almost forgot this happened during shoulder season too so that compounded the situation.
savageactor7 said:
I hear what you are saying about the view of some on this process, but it seem to me that some manufacturers include this procedure in their manual. From the Lennox Brentwood manual (page 4 regarding slow combustion, or overnight burns):
"Creosote may accumulate on the glass door.
This method of burning should be used only
after operating the Brentwood fireplace with
the air control opened to produce a hot fire for
about an hour or at medium pace for at least
three (3) hours. Slow combustion can be used
at night in order to reduce the heat output and
to prolong the burn. The loading time will be
between 6-8 hours."
I think you have the right technique...
Pete
The periodic hot fire is a perfectly good technique, if done REGULARLY... The problem is when people go for several days or longer, then do the hot fire on top of a good layer of creosote - this can be a recipe for disaster as you are deliberately trying to start a chimney fire. IOW the hot fire technique is only reccomended if one does NOT have enough creosote built up to be a major fuel source for a fire.
Gooserider
Gooserider
Gooserider said:
Absolutely. Good clarification. The manual in essence says to do it daily if you are doing overnight (slow combustion) burns.
if you have an inappropriate spark arrestor / chimney cap it may restrict your flow. Ask me how I know. I'll tell you when the smoke clears, because i just loaded some wood.
I found that ocasionally my baffles slide forward. This restricts the draft so much that when I open the door to reload I get moderate smoke spillage. When I push them back into position it's fine again.
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